your rails have always outrun mine

So, six years after my internship, I'm getting ready to return to White River Junction at last. It's kind of funny, now that I'm a month and a half out from my first actual class as a CCS student ... I've had this plan for so long that the idea of actually doing it is weird! My friend Amelia and I drove up last weekend to check out my brand new apartment (which I'll be sharing with kickass new classmate April) and have lunch with a whole pack of fantastic cartoonists.

Every once in awhile I briefly wonder if I should be throwing all my money at a two-year stint of studying comic-making in the middle of Vermont. Briefly. But just having the opportunity to spend two years focusing on learning to tell visual stories better would be basically priceless in and of itself, and I also get to learn with a diverse and talented group who love the medium as much as I do. Among other things, I really should have cause to update this blog a whole lot more!

( A few more Cartoonland photos )

So everything's coming together ... soon. Sadly I haven't really been producing much that I can post here in the interim, but! Here's something I'm pleased with:


My friend Andrea is writing a novel I'm ridiculously excited for, full of magic and underworldly demons and fascinating female characters. (A cast full of women, if you can believe in such a thing! Sigh.) The anticipation is such that I felt compelled to visualize the last tiny excerpt she teased me with, and this was the result. This is my favorite kind of subject matter to draw, and it has been a ridiculously long time since I did anything like it.

I believe I've mentioned, but: fun as it is drawing silly diary comics and the like, I want to get back to fiction; preferably long-form. And I'll never stop loving fantastical themes and settings, no matter how many insightful, unassuming slice-of-life graphic novels I read and admire.

Plus, I love Andrea's fiction, and I really can't wait until it's out there where I can recommend it to the rest of the world. I am awfully privileged to have such talented friends. (Also, I should note that the characters above are the same ones being referred to in this strip. ;))

As for my stint as graphic diarist, well, the Turtle Soup minicomics should have been ready by now, but I'm having some printer issues. I hope to finally have them in my hands within a week or two!